by Alan Rodgers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1995
A passel of bluesmen, both living and dead, and a thrice-born voodoo child combat demons and bad religion in horror writer Rodgers's hardcover debut. The premise has promise: Knit the lives of some celebrated blues travelersRobert Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leadbellyinto the legends of Hoodoo Voodoo, which is regular voodoo's bloodlust, hell-and-damnation side. Toss in the devil girl; add a baffled male character who spends most of his time running around with a resurrectedjump back!Elvis Presley, now a pretender to the priesthood of Hoodoo Doctors (i.e., bluesmen), who've fallen on tough times (he's a filth-encrusted hobo when we meet him); and then send the entire unholy cast down to New Orleans, where a cataclysm of apocalyptic proportions is underway. The Big Easy is crumbling while demons run amok through the streets because Robert Johnson, in his vast vanity, sang a song called ``Judgment Day'' that put a crack in the ``Eye of the World.'' With the natural order of good and evil upset, Johnson is raised from the dead as a demi-being and given the opportunity to right the ills of his arrogance (no bluesman is supposed to sing ``Judgment Day'' until the Rapture at the end of the world). After a while, it begins to look as if devil child Lisa's mother, Emma, is Robert Johnson's daughter, a suggestive affinity that the narrative's slide-around time structure (``Greenville, Mississippi: 1938''; ``Hell: Timeless'') leaves unclear. Before the final battle, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Furry Lewis, and Tampa Red figure out what's up and rush in to join the party, enabling Rodgers to squeeze into his yarn nearly every notable bluesman who ever picked up a guitar. The delivery, in a rumbling Delta baritone, is convincing; the rest is overwrought and mostly unscary.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-681-10086-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1995
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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